This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Child-custody battle pushes the limits of spite: DiManno

Or, in the pungent words of a clearly exasperated family court judge: “For best courtroom adaptation of a work of fiction, the award goes to the applicant … who shamelessly feigned what she thought was necessary to convince the court to circumscribe access by the respondent to their almost 6-year-old daughter.

“One could sit in Family Court for many years and not encounter such a callously conniving and mendaciously manipulative litigant. She effortlessly put the ‘rage’ in ‘outrageous’…”

The St. Catharines bench-boss, Justice Joseph W. Quinn, is gaining a reputation for his flamboyantly scripted, disarmingly sharp judgments.

In this case, the claimant is a 46-year-old university-educated woman, single mother of two children, whose blinkered and toxic custody war — she is the aggressor — pushed the case through 31 court adjournments before it finally came to trial in December.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Although no publication ban has been imposed, I’ve decided not to name the woman, mindful that there is a little girl involved. Also because when I spoke to her this week, she expressed worry that her employment prospects would be harmed by publicity, especially the judge’s characterization of her conduct. At the moment, she doesn’t have a job; indeed, hasn’t worked since the child was born, even though the girl is now in all-day kindergarten.

Through the course of this interminable legal matter — five years — the complainant (I’ll refer to her as C.S.) burned through four lawyers and was ultimately rejected for Legal Aid, which refused to fund her ongoing campaign of maliciousness. As a result, C.S. represented herself at trial, as did the real-estate agent father of their child.

To this extent I have some sympathy for the woman. Anyone who’s been through court knows how expensive the pursuit of justice can become, especially in protracted custody cases where the only winners are the lawyers.

Quinn acknowledged the difficulty of self-representation. “The parties usually do not know what they are required to prove and, if they have an inkling, they have no idea how to do it. Efforts to turn them into overnight lawyers are not sensible.”

It fell to the judge to raise germane issues and steer testimony. “A trial judge should not be put in the position of having to find, present, argue and decide a case. Wearing that number of hats is unbecoming.”

It’s venomous territory when exes go at one another’s throats in court, particularly repugnant when they snarl spit over children.

C.S. has one child with a man she met on a trip to Boston who was subsequently deported to Brazil. The father of her second child — D.C. — she met online. The judge notes dryly: “She became pregnant during their first meeting offline.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

The couple has never lived together. But the father has tried, endlessly, to foster a relationship with his daughter. C.S. has stubbornly balked, which is what brought the case to court. She had refused any overnight privileges, repeatedly schemed to prevent even the supervised visits that had been suggested by a child care worker and wanted more financial support.

“At several points throughout the trial, (C.S.) emphasized that she was a Christian who practised Christian values,” wrote the judge. “There must be some key pages missing from her copy of the Bible.”

C.S. claimed her ex, who lives in Toronto, had a criminal record. A police criminal check proved this wasn’t true.

“She does not accept the accuracy of that document,” said the judge. She accused him of being a drug user, so he submitted to drug testing, which came back negative. She claimed he’d verbally abused the child, but — despite taking the stand with a plastic tote box crammed with 25 files she told court would vindicate her allegations — could offer only one instance: when the father told his daughter she was “too old to cry.”

She professed being afraid and intimidated by the man, asserting to the judge that she suffered all the typical symptoms of a woman who’d been subjected to psychological abuse. Quinn: “At the conclusion of the case, I was easily satisfied otherwise. I have no doubt that, in this relationship, she, if I may be colloquial, wears the pants (and the belt).”

C.S. told the judge — and told me later — that she felt nervous and overwhelmed in court. Quinn didn’t see it. “During her testimony, in response to my questions and those posed to her by (D.C), she was argumentative, flippant, acerbic and sarcastic.”

Quinn continued: “It was shocking to hear the baseless and frivolous opposition that she maintained to the access requests … If she had her way, (he) would be in (Brazil) with the other father and relegated to monthly cheques and the occasional greeting card. It would seem (C.S.) wants children without the nuisance of fathers underfoot.”

The allegations she made against the girl’s father were all-encompassing yet unspecific, as if, said Quinn, “to mirror a brochure that she might have read titled: ‘Key Words and Phrases to Use if You Want Everyone to Think That the Father of Your Child is Unfit.”

C.S. used her daughter’s asthma as an excuse for denying overnight visits, saying he was incapable of managing the girl’s health issues. But the very doctor C.S. called testified that the child’s asthma was well controlled by medication and the girl was fine to stay overnight with her dad.

A preliminary assessment report prepared for the court by a social worker recommended D.C. be allowed unsupervised access “two full days each week." C.S. was so displeased that she swore out an affidavit stating: “I have concerns regarding her standards of practice." Then the social worker was dumped — “C.S. had no desire to hear any more inconvenient truths’’ — with the mother going so far as making enquiries about the woman to the College of Social Workers.

Perhaps most egregiously — while the trial was underway — after Quinn had issued an interim access order allowing the father to pick up and drop off his daughter at the girl’s home — C.S. obtained a no-trespassing order against her ex from the management of her co-op, which in turn sent a copy to Niagara Regional Police.

Quinn was furious. “Why was (D.C) being treated as if he were a criminal? Is it in the best interests of the child that she be forced to endure access pick-ups and drop-offs in doughnut shops and retail parking lots, as if a drug transaction were in progress?”

He ordered the co-op managers to court, which meant they had to get a lawyer, too. The no-trespass letters were quashed.

Of crucial relevance: Quinn determined that the child was happy to spend time with her dad and his supportive family; that they had a loving (when permitted) relationship. This made no impression on the girl’s mother. She wanted the youngster exclusively to herself, like a possession.

Cut to the chase: Quinn has found in favor of Dad — described as sincere, eager to parent fully and non-vindictive (“I am not here to trash her,” he’d testified of his ex) — ordering joint custody (residing with her mother), generous access, with weekend stay-overs and rotating vacations. The father is entitled to all medical and school records.

Child support is pegged at $682 a month, as per guidelines, until the father — who’s indebted to Canada Revenue for $300,000 due to a failed business venture — can provide more complete tax records for the past four years, whereupon the amount could be increased. Mom must provide her ex every six months a record of all “places or persons” to whom she has applied for a job, “until such time as she obtains full-time employment.”

C.S. told the Star: “It makes me shudder to think of all the children who are in the wrong hands. I did this for all the single moms out there.”

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com